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Juan Gabriel Vasquezbooks include the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin award winner and national bestseller, The Sound of Things Falling, as well as the award-winning The Informers and The Secret History of Costaguana.

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Beneath a Meth Moon

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Overview

Hurricane Katrina took her mother and granmother. And even though Laurel Daneau has moves on to a new life–one that includes a new best friend, a spot on the cheerleading squad, and dating the co-captain of the football team–she can’t get past the pain of that loss. Then her new boyfriend introduces her to meth, and Laurel is instantly seduced by its spell, the way it erases, even if only temporarily, her memories. Soon Laurel is completely hooked, a shell of her former self, desperate to be whole again, but lacking the strength to break free. But with the help of a new friend–and the loyalty of an old one–she is able to rewrite her own story and move on with her own life.

Dreamlike in quality and weaving flashbacks to the hurricane in with Laurel’s present-day struggles, this is a stunning novel that readers won’t want to miss.

"Woodson takes us on the dark journey of addiction, mimicking the slow, hazy spell of drug use with the lull of her poetic prose. . . . Laurel’s descent is brutally honest. . . . An intimate and compelling story of survival." — The Horn Book

"As accurate as it is heartbreaking; readers will be deeply moved . . . they’ll sympathize with [Laurel’s] desire to find some way to feel better. . . . Readers looking to understand the attraction of a destructive substance will get a glimmer of understanding." — The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

"Will not disappoint readers. . . . Ends on a hopeful note: perhaps it is possible to write pain ‘into the past and leave some of it there,’ and reimagine a future." — Booklist